Oz flying car takes reader flak

Sceptics cry foul

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Letters Our piece yesterday on the Oz flying car spotted over Perth shortly before making the transdimensional leap to hyper light speed provoked a large number of sceptics among you to question our judgement in the matter:

First up, we have this from Andy Robins:

those pictures have been edited, it doesnt look anything like a car on google earth!!

Oh yes it does. For Google Earth users, try this .kmz. Those still running on clockwork, proceeed directly to Honour Avenue, Point Walter, Perth.

And if it's not a flying car, then what is it? Take your pick from this lot:

I'm not so sure about this one.. If the vehicle really was 3 - 4 meters high (which is about 9 - 12 feet), and doing 80 knots, I would think that it would plow straight into the trees. If it were heading the other direction I don't think it could have gotten to 80 knots in what appears to be about 15 feet (5 meters) from the tree line, if accelerating from a dead stop. There's also the question of momentum involved. That picture seems to indicate the area where the car is located is surrounded on 3 sides by trees / foliage. I'd think the car would have slammed into the trees shortly (within a second or two) after the photo was snapped.

My guess is either the car is on some kind of elevated display (perhaps the supports were narrow enough that the satellite photo didn't capture shadows from them), or it could be a hoax - you know, put something black on the ground at a believable distance / angle from the car so that it -appears- that the car is casting a shadow from about 9 feet up.

Aeryck

Nice one. Wonder how long it takes the average punter to figure out that it's a hole in the ground <grin>.

Gregory Nicholls

Flying car, that's a pergola if its anything. If you had a flying car, why would you park it at a car park? Surely the office window would do!

Neil Swanson

Nah its a trailer, you can see the tow bar on the end. :) Whoever said it was a car is mistaking the light coloured bottom of the trailer for the ground giving the impression its something half the height floating above the ground.

Its actually easier to see the difference between the colour of the trailer and the ground if you zoom out a bit, the tow bar becomes more apparent too.

Gareth Webb

About the "flying car" in Oz, are you sure it's not something slightly less exotic instead, like for instance... a bus shelter?

Dave Pimlott

In "Witchsmeller Pursuivant", the following exchange between Edmund Blackadder and Percy may be relevant to the case at hand:

Percy: Only this morning in the courtyard I saw a horse with two heads and two bodies.
Blackadder: Two horses standing next to each other?

I submit to you that the shadow may in fact be a black second-hand Holden parked next to the "airborne" one. I say this with a heavy heart, because my alternative analysis of the photo shows the car slightly ahead of its "shadow", which would place its groundspeed rather a bit higher than the 80 knots stated. Were this the case, I'd cancel my reservation for a Moller Volantor and up sticks for the Lucky Country forthwith.

Of course, the "flying car" might also just be a water source used in construction. We see that all the time near our (endless, keep-the-road-guys-employed) road projects (why must they tear up a new road to "fix" it 3 days after pronouncing it done?) For a picture from earth (can I trademark "Google Sky"?) I can email you a photo I can take of one near my house.... Think an 18-wheeler without the engine suspended on poles above the ground....

Josef Zeevi

Indeed, Australia has been hiding it's flying cars in such water towers for decades.

Heath

It's not a flying car, it's a tent without sides. (You had me worried for a minute but I keep my shields up all the time so all you will see of my flying car on Google Earth is the shadow.)

B.J. Herbison

This looks more like a billboard sign to me. Look at the angle to the street. Sorry, no flying car yet. Keep on searching, those dang buggers *must* exist somewhere. They should have been invented years ago.

Oh, pfft. As if anyone in Perth is sharp enough to build a flying car. Somebody's probably just flogged the wheels and gotten a bit overenthusiastic bricking the thing up.

Nice theory, though

Kimberley

Well, who can say what the truth really is? As for us, we're sticking with the flying car theory - mostly because we want it to be true. After all, if this isn't the flying car we were promised back in 1955, then where the bloody hell is our flying car, eh? ®